The present invention relates to a mail sorting apparatus and, more particularly, to an apparatus for reading an address on a mail item, converting the reading result into a bar code, printing the converted bar code on the mail item, and then sorting the mail item.
In a conventional mail sorting apparatus, as shown in FIG. 8, an address 11 printed or handwritten on a mail item 10 is read by an optical character reader, and the reading result of the address is converted into a bar code 13. The converted bar code 13 is printed on a predetermined bar code printing area 12. Thereafter, the printed code is optically read to sort the mail item to a corresponding sorting box.
In the conventional sorting apparatus, since the bar code printing area 12 is predetermined, even when characters or codes such as an advertisement or a company's name, as indicated by reference numeral 14, are printed on this area, the bar code 13 is printed to overlap the company's name. As a result, the bar code cannot be optically read, and the mail item is undesirably rejected as a read error without being sorted.
Furthermore, in the conventional sorting apparatus, the bar code printing area is designated on the basis of a blank area where characters, codes, and the like are not printed, which area is determined according to a video signal obtained by photoelectric conversion and quantization of diffused light from the surface of a mail item. Therefore, when a blank area of a window portion of a mail item having a glossy surface and a window (e.g., a window envelope) of a transparent material, e.g., cellophane paper, or a blank area of a portion other than an address label of a vinyl envelope is designated as the bar code printing area, a bar code is printed on this area independently of the material.
However, the bar code ink is not immediately dried on, e.g., the cellophane paper, and is blurred due to contact with a transport system of the mail item 10. As a result, the bar code cannot be optically read, and the mail item is undesirably rejected as a read error without being sorted.